Conspiracy to cleanse poll chaos suspects

There appears to be a deliberate attempt by the ICC investigation to distort and re-orient the focus of their mission in Kenya to achieve certain political objectives and outcomes ahead of the 2012 General Election.

The blatant attempts to try to \’clean\’ the authors, masterminds and perpetrators of the post election violence (PEV) and emphasise the so-called retaliatory activities of one side and the operations of the security forces is totally unacceptable and flies in the face of the reasons why members of Parliament preferred the Hague option to a local tribunal

Suffice it to state that the guiding principle of opting for the Hague option then and even now, was in the belief that the ICC represents an impartial, non partisan, objective and professional approach to investigations with the aim of not only identifying and punishing the masterminds, financiers and perpetrators of the PEV, but also to guarantee that such heinous actions are never witnessed in Kenya again, arising from a contested election\’s result.

The government, through Cabinet also proposed, the setting up of a local credible judicial mechanism that would tamper the need for justice with reconciliation in an attempt to find a long term solution to the recurrence of inter ethnic skirmishes that are often instigated and fuelled by political players to achieve power for their own selfish ends.

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The Justice Minister has stated that this option is now possible under the New Constitutional dispensation, which would demonstrate that we can handle our issues and should not be classified as a failed state whose legal institutions cannot be trusted to deliver justice to its citizens.

The saddest bit about the direction the ICC process seems to be taking is the settling of political scores with an attempt to eliminate some 2012 political players to pave way for some individuals to face a no contest.

These same individuals are known to have incited whole communities against one community in the run-up to the 2005 referendum and of promising some members of one community, active government support to evict members of the said community from land and property acquired in the Rift Valley in the event they support them to win the election.

It is instructive to note that despite the pre-election threats and intimidation during the 1992 and 1997 multi-party elections, there was no PEV after the announcement of electoral results in all these instances despite widespread allegations of rigging and vote fixing.

The current President was an active player who never resorted to inciting his supporters to violence in the name of a stolen election opting instead severally to petition the outcome in a court of law.

In the 2002 elections, the KANU presidential candidate readily conceded defeat in what was perhaps a first for African political contests and it was hoped that this was going to be the way of civilized political behaviour by the competing political players going forward.

The buck of 2007 PEV must stop at the doors of the contestants who refused to accept and concede defeat. They even refused to go to court to challenge the results of the Presidential election while actively pursuing parliamentary petitions in the same courts.

They opted instead to incite their supporters to cause mayhem. Using a scorched earth policy, they threatened to burn down the whole country resulting in a drop of GDP growth from 7.1pc to 1.7pc in 2008.

The intervention by the security agencies to maintain law and order cannot now be turned around for blame in an attempt to cleanse the originators, planners, financiers and executors of the PEV.

The security agencies had an obligation to protect the country from degenerating into an ungovernable, rule of the jungle, unstable state. It is therefore unacceptable that focus should be directed at the interventions of the security agencies purely to divert attention from the real culprits who bear the greatest responsibility for the PEV.

One cannot also fail to notice that the ICC has been actively supported by one party to cede sovereignty of the Republic of Kenya, domesticate the ICC locally, and run rough shod over our entire judicial processes even to the extent of demanding sensitive national security meeting minutes.

This is in itself a clear demonstration that there appears to be a partnership between some members of the coalition government and the movers and shakers of the ICC, some of whom are not even signatories to the Rome Statute.
(This is part of a statement issued by Mr Mututho and several other MPs)